Hi all, am hatching duck eggs in my classroom again but just been looking at the calendar, I put eggs in on the morning of the 5th june and started counting 28 days from then, estimating hatch day to be 2nd July with day 25 being Saturday 28th June but as my incy is in my classroom was going to put them into lockdown as late as poss on the fri before I left school...

...just checked calendar again and if I count the morning of 6th June as day one (24 hours) then day 28 is more like weds 3rd july/hatch day which makes day 25 the Sunday and it being at school means I'm not there to start lockdown - so I guess what I'm asking is would it be ok to start lockdown first thing Monday which is morning of day 26 or would I count day one as the whole of that first weds i put them in and day 28 is in fact tues after all so lock them down on the Friday evening...sorry if that's confusing, basically is more lockdown better than less??

If I lockdown fri evening then if day 28 is weds they'll have nearly five days lockdown and I'm not in to monitor

I would have thought 5 days lockdown is too long. Day 1 would be the day after setting the eggs-in your case 6th June.
I take it you are using an automatic turner so you will have to start lockdown on the Monday am if you are not able to either go in yourself or get someone else to switch it off on the Sunday.
These are live animals and I would have thought you would have worked out the hatching date before setting them-had you waited one more day this would not have arisen.
A lovely experiance for children I have no doubt but these are not toys and deserve more thought.

Unfortunately with half term the week before I set them and getting them from a farm I was limited as to when to put them in, in order for the children to get the full experience I wanted them free to help set them etc and in a school free time is very hard to come by, I also tried to count the 28th day to fall in the beginning of the week as last year half hatched at the weekend and what with only being in school for 5 days a week you can imagine how tricky that is, you're not going to get lockdown and firm hatch days whilst the children are there, I'm not in the position of just setting at home and sitting and watching, I have 29 children to think about too, what's the point if I'm in for lockdown but hatch day falls at a weekend.

I did give it thought, more than last year in fact to ensure that 1. The children saw the whole hatch and 2. So that I didn't have to unplug and take home the incubator for my late hatchers like last year, I was thinking of the ducks and making sure i did not disturb hatching by moving the incy, unfortunately I misjudged day 1 and so am now a day late, I am more than aware that they are not toys having hatched and cared for 7 successfully last year, 6 of which I assisted but thank you for your opinion on the matter. I have asked a teacher to go in on Sunday and lock them down so we'll be fine.

... think at mo I've got 14 eggs still viable but I have a lovely cold that one of the children has kindly shared with me so rather than candle them today I left them alone for fear of jeopardising anything so I'm not sure, (had 14 definate movers on Friday, 2 eggs I was unsure of but left in the bator just incase)

Hopefully the other teacher will be able to go in on Sunday and lock down for me, I'll show her what to do then just gotta cross fingers for some hatchers